HANSEN v. BROWNELL

Erwin G. HANSEN, Plaintiff,
v.
Herbert BROWNELL, Jr., Attorney General of the United States and Successor to the Alien Property Custodian, Defendant

The opinion of the court was delivered by: MCGUIRE

The first matter that has to be disposed of is whether or not the property vested is actually the property of the plaintiff, because if it is not his then, of course, he has no right to proceed in the circumstances.

Plaintiff says that while the property was not ever manually delivered to him, yet he obtained it by gift from his father on January 15, 1934 by transfer presumably out of his father's name into his name in the deBary Bank in Amsterdam. This was his testimony at the trial. At the trial, however, he was confronted by documentary evidence in the nature of an admission against interest ante litem motam to the effect that the same was obtained by 'purchase' in 1932. (Def.Ex. No. 1)

This lends itself to two conclusions. First: That the property is not his by virtue of either of the two versions of the method by which it was secured because they are mutually irreconcilable and exclusive, and certainly if the property is his he ought to be able to state categorically how he obtained it. Second: That it is his but that he became confused as he testified with the meaning of the word 'purchase', assuming that in the circumstances in which it was used it had a legal connotation, or that he was aware of the meaning of the words, as he also said, but for reasons occult, unexpressed and best known to himself, he desired to leave the matter in its present and ambiguous state, relying on the bank records to show title

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